Rotary vacuum pickers such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,806,114 and 3,864,187 are currently in use for removing labels one at a time from a stack of labels and for the most part will hold the label while withdrawing it from the stack particularly if the labels are soft and/or unsized sometimes, however, labels are made of a stiff paper and/or the paper of the label whether soft or stiff may require sizing to protect them from being discolored by overflow of the contents of the container as, for example, a detergent and will slip relative to the surface of the picker because the edges of the vacuum slot do not dig into the hard and/or smooth slippery surfaces of the labels. At other times a slight loss of vacuum especially when the picking is marginal because of the stiffness and/or smoothness of the paper results in slipping. It is also known to employ mechanical means in the form of pins to pick labels from a stack, however, such apparatus depends for its operation on penetration of the pins into the labels and this is undesirable. It is the purpose of this invention to provide the advantages of vacuum picking and mechanical picking in such a way as to prevent slipping of labels which have hard and/or slippery surfaces and to compensate for slight losses in vacuum during picking which may result in slippage without the disadvantage of penetration or otherwise defacing the labels.